Henry Rollins is back, on the first night of the The Long March tour 2012 and in a really up-market venue, The Bridgewater Hall. I’m sure those walls weren’t accustomed to the eclectic songs coming from the speakers before the show.

The audience was the usual mixed bunch of people: punks, rockers and the middle aged, you’ll never guess which demographic I fall into.

Henry walked on at just a little past 8pm: he mentioned the venue, getting into the U.K., the criminal looking family at the airport, making documentaries with National Geographic, what you can’t take into India, catching snakes and rats in India, eating rat liver, gigs in New York, seeing a girl get squashed by a stage diver, teaching Metallica a riff or two, shocking Dennis Hopper and going to Costco with Heidi ‘The Demon’ May for a ladder, paper and a George W. Bush book. He talked about his travels in North Korea, China, Tibet, Africa, Haiti and Cuba.

I think he said he was in Tibet, looking at the statue of a buddha, when a monk approached him and asked in perfect English what Henry thought was the significance of the bird poop on the statue. Henry thought but confessed to not knowing. “Don’t stay in one place for too long!”, replied the monk.

He mentioned his love of PG Tips and that he gave someone quite a few in a Ziploc bag when he was with dropinthebucket.org in Africa.

Henry was done by 10:15pm, unplugged the mic, put it in his left trouser pocket, picked up his India list and what looked like a kitchen timer, waved and exited stage right.

Sir Les PattersonThe online archive of Sir Leslie Colin Patterson. Wit, sage, raconteur, late Cultural Attaché to the Court of St James and Chairperson of the Australian Chapter of the International Cheese Board.